Ransacked in Rome

My wife and I have a free afternoon and decide to spend it at the movies. Our viewing choice is between Ted and Woody Allen’s new film, To Rome with Love, and because I like Woody and my wife likes Judy Davis, the Woodman wins our 15 bucks.

We arrive early, find seats, unpack contraband from Starbucks we have smuggled in -- chicken sandwich, iced coffee and a small bottle of Pellegrino. A predominately AARP audience arrives and settles in, and all is pleasant until First Look starts pimping new TV shows. CBS is launching some drama called Elementary, in which a modern day Sherlock Holmes, boasting tats and hip patter, solves crimes in New York City with his sidekick, Dr. Watson, a woman in this incarnation, played by Lucy Liu. Yawn.

I ask my wife if every second of contemporary American life must be filled with advertising.

“Wherever a captive audience can be found,” she says, “there will be ads. The moments before the previews roll is a prime advertising opportunity.”

“But nobody is paying the slightest attention,” I say. “Look around. What are people doing? Fiddling with cell phones, chomping popcorn and junior mints, staring into space.”

“Subliminal,” says my wife, tucking into her half of the chicken sandwich. “The messages work on a subconscious level. We’re being indoctrinated right now.”

“Silence has been totally devalued. Can I have the trail mix, please?”

“What trail mix? I didn’t bring any trail mix.”

“I put a bag in your purse before we left the house.”

First Look was now recapping the shows the audience had just ignored.

“You ransacked my purse?”

“Who said anything about ransacked? I simply opened your purse and dropped a bag of trail mix inside. That hardly qualifies as ransacking.”

My wife turns in her seat to look at me.

“You violated the sanctity of my purse, the one place where I have any privacy. Do I ever ransack your wallet? No, of course not. I respect your right to privacy even though you don’t reciprocate. You’re as bad as our children.”

“May I have the trail mix, please?”

“Not until you acknowledge my point,” says my wife, “and promise to respect the sanctity of the purse from this day forward.”

“OK, got it, though I think you’re taking this too far. I didn’t look through your purse -- I only put something in it that is too bulky to fit in my pocket. Now, if you will kindly hand over the trail mix, we can enjoy the movie.”

“Acknowledge my point.”

“I just did.”

“Not even close. Tell me what I need to hear and mean it.”

Beaten, I acquiesce, even though I still think she’s making an issue out of nothing. No point in waging a protracted battle now – I want to enjoy the movie and my trail mix.

Reaching in her purse, feeling around as if the thing were bottomless -- past wallet, cell phone, makeup pouch, checkbook, Kleenex, gum, key ring, pencil, pen, highlighter, miniature flashlight, hand sanitizer, lipstick, hand lotion – until she locates the bag of trail mix and shakes her head with obvious disappointment.

“You didn’t transfer it to a Ziploc bag.”

“I was in a hurry.”

“No trail mix for you. Opening this bag in a theatre would be like setting off a bomb in a closet.”

“Half the people here are partially deaf. They’ll never know.”

“They will. And they will hate us. We’ll be bombarded with hate vibes.”

“Who cares? Please, hand the trail mix over.”

The previews are about to start, the lights dim; a woman in the row behind us clears her throat with unrestrained gusto, as if she is sitting alone in her living room. Late arriving patrons stand in the aisle looking for seats. “Are those three taken?” “Is anyone sitting there?” Why people show up late and expect to find good seats is a mystery to me. Now the latecomers are climbing over people, imposing on them to move their legs, their shopping bags, canes, muttering, “excuse me, sorry, pardon me,” making a nuisance of themselves as the first preview rolls. I’m thinking of almonds and peanuts – natural and honey roasted – prisoners in my wife’s fortress purse; they call to me, but I am powerless to liberate them.

To Rome with Love isn’t as entertaining Woody’s last film, Midnight in Paris, and a half-hour in I’m bored and thinking we should have opted for Ted, the foul-mouthed talking teddy bear. The woman in the row behind us obviously agrees, for she is asleep, head cocked to one side, mouth open. The sight of Woody Allen on the screen doesn’t make me laugh, and the dialogue doesn’t sparkle. What happened, Woody?

My wife must be having the same thoughts. Dropping the bag of trail mix in my lap she says, “Knock yourself out.”

  

Teach the Children (The Last in a Series of Downer Posts)

“It all depends on the money/and who is in your family tree.” Bloody Well Right, Supertramp

That about sums up where we are, doesn’t it? Money and connections are the tickets to the fabled American Dream.

Don’t teach your children to work hard and play by the rules -- that’s for suckers, so hopelessly 1992 -- progress to our brave new world. Take a lesson from American bankers: teach them to lie and cheat, game the system, rig the rules so that even if they lose, they win.

Teach them the virtue of selfishness. If the house next door catches fire it’s no concern of theirs, let it burn.

Teach them that there is no such thing as conflict of interest, only self-interest.

Teach them to disdain the poor, the infirm, and the weak. The world is made of winners and losers; winners are righteous, losers are lazy, stupid or both.

Teach them that wealth and power are infallible signs of superior character, and that moderation isn’t a virtue a rational person pursues.

Teach them to blame the victims. Tuck them into bed at night with stories of rugged individualism, heroes that go it alone, asking for no help from anyone.

Teach them that the world is full of parasites eager to latch onto the successful, sucking the lifeblood of drive, initiative and ambition; explain that despite what they may see or hear or experience, the playing field is level and the game fair for all.

Teach them that “government” is the most rapacious parasite of all, an insatiable demon hell bent on redistributing wealth.  

Teach them to know rather than to think.

Teach them that some human lives are inherently more valuable than other human lives.

Teach them that honesty is for the faint of heart, accountability for the unenlightened.

Bloody well right. 

Three-Headed Monster

I was thinking of writing about the American presidential election, the choice facing voters this November between two servants of the status quo, Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama. I have a vision of their heads on the sides of a tarnished coin: flip the coin and the ruling class wins and ordinary citizens lose; flip it again and the result is the same. There are differences between the two men, shades and subtleties, but strip away the campaign rhetoric and posturing and pandering, and what remains is the fact that Obama and Romney represent the same basic point of view.

Obama is insulated by the DC culture of power and influence, Romney by his money and privilege. For the electorate the choice is between bad and worse, between one set of dull prescriptions and another, between more of the same and way more of the same.

But if I delve too deeply into politics my head might explode like a watermelon dropped from a ten-story building. My reservoir of hope is running dry, and the idea that we are finally and fatally fucked as a nation is taking hold, and being reinforced every day.

More on my mind than the election is the passing of Rodney King, the black man savagely beaten by white LA police officers, the beating caught on videotape, shocking all but people of color who saw this brand of policing so often it was expected; the dim street, the cops encircling the victim, the flash of batons, the blows raining down. At their trial twenty years ago, the white officers were acquitted, touching off some of the worst riots LA has ever seen. Anger and rage and hopelessness bottled up for years exploded in the streets, the city burned, and once again it was time for Americans to confront uncomfortable truths about race and power.

What would happen today if a black cop shot and killed an unarmed white teenager in Beverly Hills or Pacific Palisades? Even if his service record were exemplary, would the black cop be given the benefit of the doubt by the media, by jurors, by the public? Would his superiors rush to his defense? Would the character of the victim be called into question, as it invariably is when the victim is black or brown?

The brutal truth is that armed white cops kill unarmed black men with near total impunity, and it happens so frequently we are inured to the injustice. Amadou Diallo had a wallet in his hand and was shot 41 times in New York City; Oscar Grant lay face down on a BART platform in Oakland and was shot in the back. These are only two examples of many.

Racism runs deep here, courses through our history, all the way back to the founding of our nation. Our most revered white forefathers preached freedom and equality but built their fortunes on the bent backs of slaves.

It’s hard to argue with the proposition that justice depends on the pigmentation of one’s skin. White citizens are not targeted for stop and frisk operations nor are they subject to racial profiling. White citizens get the benefit of the doubt; black and brown citizens get the harshest punishment the law allows. Presumed guilty until proven innocent.

The gnarled finger of racism even touches a sitting president of mixed race. Millions of Americans still believe Barrack Obama was born beyond our borders, that he’s not like us, not the upstanding Christian he claims to be. Two and three years after taking his oath of office, Obama was still being asked to prove his authenticity.  

Martin Luther King warned against three American evils: racism, militarism, and the brand of predatory capitalism now woven into our social fabric; these evils feed off and reinforce one another, making them difficult to ameliorate. I can’t help but believe King would be as disappointed in how little progress we’ve made against racism, militarism and predatory capitalism, as he would be at the vacuity of our presidential election season. 

Midas Cometh

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase bank, walked into the Senate Banking Committee hearing room the other day as if he owned the place.

And in a very real sense, Dimon and his brethren in the financial services industry do in fact own the Senate, not to mention the House, a slew of governors, a few judges and dozens of state legislators.

Vito Corleone never had it this good.

Before sitting down to testify, Dimon posed for photographers, his bearing regal, his expression imperious, certain he was the star of this middling formality. The Senate didn’t really care how or why JPMorgan Chase lost nearly $3 billion on trades that went sour, but it had a responsibility to the charade of American politics to pretend it did, so raise the curtain and let the drama begin!

Not wanting to upset their Golden Goose, most of the senators lobbed softball questions from the dais. Jim DeMint of South Carolina openly fawned, like a teenage girl within arms reach of Justin Bieber. DeMint remarked that the Federal government loses “$2 billion every day,” though he didn’t say how or explain why this silly statement was relevant to this hearing. Comparing the Federal government to a commercial bank is like comparing an apple to an armadillo, but what the hell -- this is only the US Senate -- which still fancies itself the greatest deliberative body in the world.

How far the bar has fallen.

The thrust of Dimon’s testimony was that despite the huge losses, JPMorgan remained a kick-ass, money-making machine able and willing to regulate itself. Rest easy, Dimon seemed to say, I’m on the case and in command. As long as the ranks of bank regulators are stacked with alumni from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, and as long as our offices are overflowing with ex-legislators cashing in on their political connections, the golden pig trough will never run dry. We get obscene profits, you get campaign contributions, voila, everybody wins!

Corruption this slick and sanctified is a beautiful thing.

The hearing’s funniest moment comes when Dimon asserts that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and then chief of the New York Fed Tim Geithner, forced JPMorgan to take TARP bailout money at the height of the banking crisis in 2008. We didn’t want or need a federal bailout, said Dimon with a straight face, but Ben and Tim are very persuasive guys, and in fact they wouldn’t let me go to the men’s room until I agreed. It was late at night and we were drinking gallons of Starbuck’s and my bladder was screaming in agony. The same goes for the low interest federal loans that were forced on us; JPMorgan didn’t need loans because we were solid as granite -- it was all in the name of taking one for the Industry. Senators, please, faced with the choice of peeing your pants or taking millions of dollars in no-strings-attached money, what would you have done?

All in all the hearing was a spectacular farce.

Just a routine day on Capitol Hill.

Amerika?

Is this America or Amerika?

Where are we?

I wonder.

I worry.

Excessive and continuous glorification of military power, symbolism and of our inalienable right to use military power whenever and wherever our leaders deem necessary; the notion of American exceptionalism and belief in our own mythology when it comes to defining ideals like freedom or democracy for other countries; the concentration of corporate power and financial wealth, made possible by decades of explicit government policy; ill-defined foreign wars launched with relative ease; incessant and sophisticated surveillance and monitoring of citizens, their private communications and public gatherings; government secrecy and extreme punishment for those who divulge information exposing official malfeasance – even those acting from conscience; manipulated elections; militarized police forces; harsh criminal sentences and bulging prisons, particularly for people of color; intolerance of sexual differences, coupled with a false and harsh piety; denial of verifiable scientific facts; a corporate press that serves only as mouthpiece for its financial masters, framing every story and event so the status quo is never challenged or threatened, and no alternative to the “free” market is ever considered; the President as Executioner-in-Chief, keeper of the list of who must die in what far away land.

This is not creeping fascism – this is fascism arriving at a gallop – and it’s happening here and it’s happening now.    

Heart of Darkness

“He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable.” Joseph Conrad

It’s the day after the election and the last thing I want to do is write about politics, but I feel I should, even though doing so is like being trapped in a port-a-potty on a sweltering August day.

An outhouse is the perfect description for the debased American political environment: foul smelling and dirty, an affront to the senses, watch where you step and try not to touch anything. 

The big news is that Scott Walker escaped recall in Wisconsin, in a campaign dominated by money. Organized labor (unfortunately, that’s labor with a small “l”) drove the recall effort, but labor was outspent on TV, print and social media advertising by a 7-to-1 margin -- with three quarters of that money reportedly coming from outside the state.

Walker’s claim to infamy lies in his successful push to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees, and to reduce the benefits of these workers so they become as financially insecure as most private sector workers. In other words, Walker, backed by the financial muscle of the Koch brothers and other virulently conservative think tanks and political action committees, is a player in the Republican game of Race-to-the-Bottom. I don’t know what it is about American conservatives that leads them to believe that the best path to a strong economy is to make a tiny slice of the population ridiculously wealthy, and the majority of people dirt poor, working poor, or financially insecure, but this is what their policies have wrought, and all they will continue to produce until enough Americans wake from their stupor and demand an end to coddling the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

As it stands, the US ranks number one among the world’s industrialized nations in income inequality, and we’re making great strides in child poverty, too. Thank you Ronnie Reagan, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Bill Clinton.

The Wisconsin recall pitted people power versus money power and, no surprise, money won. No wonder then that Mitt “$Robot$” Romney and Barrack “No Conviction” Obama spend hours groveling for campaign contributions from corporate chieftains, hedge fund managers and sundry billionaires. Investments made by big donors will eventually be repaid with unlimited access to powerful legislators and regulators, for this is how American democracy is played post Citizens United: every political office -- local, state, national -- carries a price tag.

This morning the mainstream media were quick to point out that since Governor Walker extracted many pounds of flesh from public employees in Wisconsin, the state has staged a remarkable budget turnaround, moving from deficit to surplus. Other factors surely contributed to Wisconsin’s move from red to black, but those are cumbersome details, unsuitable for a 30 second sound bite. For now, Walker is a conservative hero, the man who challenged evil unions and greedy public employees, the champion of small business owners, those mythic people who carry the American economy on their hardy shoulders.

Out here on the Platinum Coast, a political hack by the name of Abel Maldonado is running for Congress on the GOP ticket; Maldonado’s TV ads during the primary touted small businesses too, along with individual integrity (“backbone” is what Washington needs!) and like all politicians in a time of high unemployment, an alleged gift for creating jobs. “My father owned a farm so I know how to create jobs!” Or some such nonsense. You can bet Abel and every other Republican will employ the Wisconsin template in the general election, hammering away at public employee unions and pensions, stoking envy, dissatisfaction, and anger among likely voters.

It will be a long summer full of empty promises, grotesque pandering, false claims, and outrageous mendacity. Mitt Romney will claim that he deserves to be elected president because he made a pile of money for himself. Barrack Obama will remind voters that it was he who sent assassins to kill Osama bin Laden. “I know how to make money!” “I know how to kill terrorists!”

No doubt about it: we’re headed up the river toward the heart of darkness. Best to keep your head down and your eyes shut.  

The Executioner’s Opera

The New York Times details how the United States decides to execute someone deemed a threat to our security. The decision is made in the White House, in secret, and the president has final say. There is no legal due process, presentation of evidence or questioning of witnesses, though the administration claims to be painstaking in its analysis.

Then the drones are launched, in Yemen, Libya or the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan, against a single “militant” or group of “militants”, a surgical strike from the air, controlled by people thousands of miles away.

We are assured Herculean efforts are made to avoid civilian casualties in this program of targeted assassination, but miscues happen and innocents are killed, incinerated, blown to bits – women, children, elderly – whoever happens to be in the wrong place at the right time. If our government issues any apology at all, it is only grudgingly, after many denials. We are at war, after all, and remorse is voluntary.

Reading the New York Times story reminds me of Blood Meridian, the novel by Cormac McCarthy, about the scalp hunters who rode with Glanton and the Judge, murdering Apaches and Mexicans with no consequence and no burden on their conscience. Glanton’s men killed at close range and were often splattered with their victims’ blood, shards of bone, or strands of viscera. In that era, killing was intimate and messy.

We have evolved neater methods.

Obama the constitutional scholar and Nobel Peace Prize winner arrogates to himself the powers of an absolute monarch, life and death, guilt or innocence, friend or enemy. At home the monarch spies on his subjects and abroad murders those he deems a threat, real or only potential, even American citizens. Only Obama knows the difference between a militant and a terrorist.

What if the leaders of France or Germany or Sweden decided that they too must assassinate potential enemies in order to safeguard their people? Would the US allow it? Unlikely. The US would demand strict observance of international law and the will of the United Nations, a process to prevent civilian casualties. Other than the US itself, only Israel is allowed to kill with impunity.

The hypocrisy is astounding.

No public outcry follows the Times story, no debate, no doubt, the dual wings of our single political party stand in solidarity. The attacks on 9/11 were terrible, barbaric, the work of the criminally insane, but our response to 9/11 has been as lethal to our civil liberties and moral standing as the attacks themselves. We kidnap and indefinitely detain, we kidnap and torture, we assassinate. The bulwarks and levees of law constructed to curb the abuse of power by our government lay breached.

We have become as barbaric and insane as those who attacked us.

One for All, All For One

Swinging their batons with vigor, the Chicago police drive protestors back and away from the heavily guarded building where NATO ministers are meeting. The footage I watched aired on Democracy Now and in addition to the crowd scenes showed veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions tossing their medals in the street; a few of them apologized to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan for destroying their respective countries.

NATO, lest we forget forget, is the acronym of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, conceived in the aftermath of World War II to contain Soviet expansionist designs in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union is long defunct but NATO lives on as the military arm of the global 1%, active in conflicts far from its headquarters in Brussels.

The United States funds an inordinate share of NATO’s military budget, and in return NATO provides legitimacy, of sorts, for our invasion and decade-long occupation of Afghanistan. Under NATO’s aegis, the United States can claim it isn’t acting unilaterally. The claim is BS and cannot stand scrutiny (everyone knows who calls the shots and runs the show), but it allows our politicians to salve their consciences and sleep easier at night, as well as making it possible for our less-than-enthusiastic partners to convince their constituents that when it comes to NATO, it’s one for all and all for one.

The American public is overwhelmingly opposed to the war in Afghanistan and beginning to understand the staggering costs in blood and treasure, multiplying year after year with no end in sight, despite what the president says, but the political class remains immune to the public will. Popular sentiment against the war is present, but not focused enough to force politicians to pay attention. It’s often said that politics is really about distribution – who gets what, when, and how much – and it’s clear that in the United States the military-security complex is first in line, exempt from austerity fever, and ever and always sacrosanct.

 Even in a depression we find money for wars, for bombs, for aircraft, for ships, while the growing needs of citizens for affordable health care, decent jobs, education and public infrastructure are ridiculed as unaffordable “entitlement” programs that must be trimmed or sacrificed.

In this era of austerity and debt hysteria we can even find $70 million to hand to Israel for missile defense. What could $70 million buy here in our own nation, where so many are struggling? We can’t even debate the question because to do so is to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, and in contemporary America, dissent is verboten, a lesson delivered to the Chicago protestors at the business end of a police baton. 

Hoist the Cup

Seeing is believing.

If I hadn’t watched every minute of the game, if I had looked only at the stats – possession, total shots, shots on target, corners – I would have assumed that Bayern Munich beat Chelsea easily. The fact that Chelsea was outplayed for most of the Champions League final yesterday and yet still walked away with the hardware, is one reason football is the endlessly fascinating game that it is. 

In football, the improbable happens all the time.

Petr Cech was a monster in goal for Chelsea. Bayern pressured the Chelsea end relentlessly, wave after wave of attacks led by Ribery and Robben, but Chelsea refused to buckle, even without stalwart defenders John Terry and Branislov Ivanovich. On their back foot most of the game, the Blues showed grit and heart and championship character. And yes, the soccer gods appeared to side with Chelsea on this occasion, no question about it. No matter the sport or the team, it takes a bit of luck to win a championship.

Bayern had numerous chances to put the game away, but they couldn’t do it.

When Fernando Torres came on in the 84^th minute and Chelsea behind a goal, the Blues became more attack minded. Torres and Didier Drogba haven’t been on the pitch together very often, but it should be remembered that it was Torres’ hard work that won the corner on which Drogba headed home the equalizer. No commentator has mentioned this, but it struck me as significant.

If this was Didier Drogba’s final appearance for Chelsea, the big man certainly exits in fitting style. In games on the largest stages, Drogba delivers the goods. He was cool as ice when he stroked the winning penalty kick into the back of the net, as were Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole before him. The core Chelsea stars came through in the clutch, and coupled with some brilliant goal keeping from Cech, some luck and some Bayern miscues, the Blues became champions of Europe by the most difficult route possible.

Hopelessly Hoping

In January, the finance wizards of California Governor Jerry Brown’s administration projected a budget deficit of $9 billion. When Brown released his May Revise a few days ago – an annual ritual watched raptly by school districts and other government agencies – the deficit had swelled to $16 billion, meaning more austerity for the Golden State, unless voters approve tax increases in November.

Because raising taxes in our state requires a super-majority, a couple of anti-tax Republicans in the Legislature can effectively block any tax increase, which is why Brown has no choice but to take his proposal directly to the voters by way of the initiative process.

The people’s elected representatives cannot behave like grownups, so appeal is made directly to the voters, leading more often than not to unintended consequences, like the most sacred of all sacred cows, Prop 13.

It’s an abject state of affairs, but Californians know the drill by rote. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to clean up the mess in Sacramento, drive his Hummer through the gridlock and partisanship, usher in a new era of prosperity, and instead Arnold managed only to punt tough decisions and leave the state worse off than he found it in 2003.

The official unemployment rate in California is 11%, meaning the true rate is much higher. School children may have a shorter school year ahead, and students in the UC, Cal State and community college systems will surely face higher fees. Next month, thousands of young people will graduate saddled with student loan debt and anemic job prospects. Sorry your American Dream is unattainable.

The other day I was listening to Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now. The venerable old professor admitted that optimism is difficult to muster these days, what with senseless foreign wars (AF-PAK, Yemen, Iraq, and others related to the War on Terror or the War on Drugs), Wall Street criminality aided and abetted by Democrats and Republicans alike, a dysfunctional political system, national elections that are nothing more than crass and misleading advertising campaigns, environmental denial, human rights abuses, and state sanctioned murder – at home in the penal system and abroad with the use of drones. 

This is a grim list for sure, yet Chomsky identified the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, the recent election in France, the popular pushback against austerity measures in some European countries, and the fact that Latin American nations are asserting their independence from domination by the United States, specifically when it comes to the failed War on Drugs.

Chomsky takes hope from the fact that some people are not asleep, passive, insensate, cowed or demoralized to the point they are willing to surrender ideals of freedom, justice and equality without a battle.

One other comment from Chomsky caught my ear, and that was when he talked about April 15, tax day in the U.S. If we had a functioning democracy, Chomsky said, April 15 would be a day of celebration rather than a day of dread. If we had a functioning democracy, we would relate paying taxes with contributing to the public good, the public welfare, to taking care of our common needs, rather than with an evil, over-reaching, liberty-stealing government. Americans have been fed a steady diet of anti-government propaganda for so long that even people who benefit from programs like Medicare and Social Security claim to hate the government!

Which brings us back to California, where citizens profess to want safe roads and freeways, top-notch schools and public safety, parks and recreation areas, clean beaches and safe water, but balk at ponying up the dough to pay for these services. The wealthy apparently feel they are above paying taxes, the poor can’t pay, and the middle class is no longer broad or deep enough to carry the freight.

And so, divided and polarized or simply driven to indifference, we cannibalize our state and our children’s future.

This weekend several thousand people who refuse to accept the status quo will gather in Chicago to protest a NATO summit taking place in the Windy City. The Chicago police, with ample assistance from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, will lockdown quadrants of the city. The NATO ministers need peace, quiet and privacy as they discuss contingencies for future conflicts and armed interventions -- democracy from the barrel of a gun. At the slightest provocation, such as a grandmother holding aloft a bouquet of roses at the wrong moment, the heavily armed security forces will spring to action.

Don’t expect the major American news media to cover the Chicago demonstrations, at least not in any meaningful way. What the protestors want and have to say won’t fit the narrative frame the media will have decided upon in advance. If the protests become violent and property is damaged, we’ll hear about it, but if peace prevails, we won’t hear a word.

 

Commencement

Our niece graduated from Pitzer College yesterday. 259 graduates in the Class of 2012 at this small, private, liberal arts college -- one of the five Claremont colleges. On a day that dawned hazy and turned sunny, orange and white were the dominant colors. Neat, symmetrical rows of white folding chairs under a huge white tent, green grass underfoot, parents and friends and relatives jockeying for vantage from which to shoot video or still photographs while music from a jazz quintet played over loudspeakers. The anticipation builds as ten o’clock nears and faculty and graduates line up for the triumphant processional walk up the center aisle.

The president of Pitzer College, a woman, welcomes the graduates and guests and then rattles off some of the accomplishments of this class: the thousands of hours of community service rendered, the trips abroad, the academic achievements, the honors earned, the trophies won in pool or on court and field. Pitzer College may be small and private and liberal, but it doesn’t lack for passion or spirit or pride. Our niece had a marvelous experience here, living in the dorms, studying in Ecuador for a semester, and forming friendships that in all probability will last her a lifetime. No matter what twists and turns happen in the future, the Pitzer class of 2012 will forever be connected by their shared experience, the fact that they were together on this milestone day, under a great white tent, wearing white caps with orange tassels.

Dr. Angela Davis is the commencement speaker and receives a cacophonous and prolonged ovation when she is introduced. My wife and I are old enough to remember when Angela Davis was a lightning rod figure, a walking controversy, feared by politicians and on J. Edgar Hoover’s Ten Most Wanted list. Intelligent, black, outspoken and courageous, Davis was too much for then Governor Ronald Reagan, who vowed that Dr. Davis would never again hold a position in the University of California system. Father Ronnie, protecting young, impressionable minds from the dangerous radical with the Afro and hoop earrings. Fortunately, this vow didn’t come to pass.

Dr. Davis set her iPad on the podium and began speaking, slowly at first, about her experiences in the world, in life, how after she was fired a second time from UCLA she was invited to teach here, at Pitzer, but only under strict conditions – student access to her lectures was limited, and the location of these lectures a closely guarded secret, lest a crowd gather and mayhem ensue, a mass conversion to Communism, feminism, and equality.

In the way she effortlessly taps a deep font of knowledge and wisdom, Davis reminds me of Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. She clearly enjoys young people, her smile is warm and effusive, her sense of humor enhanced by her years rather than diminished. Using her own story as living proof, she tells the graduates that if they are lucky to live long enough, every defeat can be turned into a victory. She uses words like “social justice” and “equality” and “militarism”, words that may be standard currency here at Pitzer, but are largely absent from American discourse. In fact, the concepts sound hoary, antiquated, and foreign. What does social justice mean in contemporary America?

When the name of the last graduate has been called, when the tassels have flipped from back to front, and caps launched airborne, there are tears and smiles, high fives and hugs, flowers and leis, Mylar balloons, and most of all, the prized diploma, in Latin and English, as is the Pitzer tradition.

 

  

  

Cheapskate

The mid-50’s man waiting for his car to be washed looked like three million bucks. A full head of salon-quality hair with flawless blonde highlights, expensive Italian loafers, crisp black slacks and a fitted light blue dress shirt open at the throat. He wore a platinum wedding band, and balanced an iPad on his knee. His skin was perfection, smooth and radiant, and he carried himself with the authority of a man who has his world on a string.

One of the games I play to pass the time when I take my car to Prestige Car Wash on Milpas Street is trying to match people with the cars coming off the wash line. I make mistakes now and again, like when I assume the pretty late 30’s blonde woman with the impressive diamond ring and recently manicured toenails must belong to a silver BMW, when in fact her ride is a hunter green Range Rover.

My three million dollar man belongs to a brand new black Jaguar, no question about it. There’s a BMW, a Benz and a Porsche in the queue, but I just know this put together gent is going to step forward and claim the Jag when the Mexican crew finishes polishing the wheels. And sure enough, when one of the workers standing near the Jag raises his hand and calls, “Ready,” the man slowly stands up and saunters over. He circles the car, looking for imperfections, and then folds himself into the driver’s seat and drops two quarters in the Mexican’s hand.

No lie. I was close enough to see and it was two quarters.

I also saw an incredulous look slide quickly across the Mexican’s face. This is a worker for whom tips are bread and butter -- and tortillas, beans, salsa, meat, chicken and eggs – and in his occupation rich cheapskates are an occupational hazard.

Tipping generously was one of the few lessons I learned from my father. Pete always said that if a working person like a bartender, waitress, cab driver, bellhop or doorman does you a service, show your respect for their effort and tip them well, because, like you, they’re just trying to make it.

After my Jaguar man drove off, I sat in the sunshine with my wife and daughter and thought about what my father said, and how the Jaguar man is emblematic of the sickness that afflicts contemporary America. Honest labor gets no respect from the rich.

I don’t agree with one of Mitt Romney’s cronies who penned a book extolling the virtues of extreme income inequality, nor can I wrap my brain around the mentality of the Republican Party – or the wealthy clientele they so assiduously serve – no matter how I try. It’s beyond my comprehension, beyond my frame of reference, and beyond my conception of what America should stand for.

Three and a half decades of the same twisted ideology. Cut taxes for the wealthy, cut taxes on investment income, dividends, capital gains; structure international trade agreements to encourage American companies to send jobs to low wage countries; relentlessly privatize public services and never miss an opportunity to attack unions, collective bargaining, and public employee pensions. This is good for America? How? In an economy that turns our consumption, on the buying of cars, houses, home appliances and furniture, why do the Republicans insist on making it nearly impossible for working people to consume?

Our Honda CRV is ready, shiny and clean. My daughter has two $1 bills in one hand and her little pink purse in the other. After handing the bills over, she digs in her purse and gives the car wash man all the change she has, a $1.38.

Good girl. Never forget where you come from.

Post-Op

Six days since my rotator cuff surgery. Pain is constant but not overwhelming, and I’m down to one Percocet a day. The most difficult aspect so far is getting a decent night’s slumber; I have to sleep on my back, propped up with pillows, but force of habit makes me yearn to roll on my left side. Yesterday I took a walk in the neighborhood for the first time since the surgery, my arm encased in a navy blue sling. Except for almost being run down by a Quest Diagnostics SUV (pedestrians get no respect in Santa Barbara anymore), it was invigorating to be outside in the open air. I also washed dishes for the first time, a milestone I know my wife appreciated. Tomorrow I see my orthopedic surgeon for a follow-up.

Meanwhile, the earth keeps turning on its axis and the perfectly quaffed and sartorially splendid weatherman on Good Morning America, Sam Champion, reports on extreme weather in this or that section of the country, without ever, not once, offering an explanation for what’s causing the record breaking heat or spate of tornadoes or flooding. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sam Champion or any mainstream weather hound, for that matter, speak the controversial words, “climate change.”

I read that Mr. Obama made a surprise and secret visit to Afghanistan. Inside a fortified aircraft hangar located inside a fortified perimeter, Obama pretends to speak to the troops when in fact his speech is directed at American voters; the setting, the timing, and the rhetoric is stage-managed to assure voters that our decade long Afghan misadventure has actually been a smashing success. Obama now sees a way forward in Afghanistan, a path to peace and prosperity for the long-suffering Afghan people. Hail and rejoice! Shortly after Obama left the country on Air Force One, the Taliban, who do understand a thing or two about political theatre, mounted an attack in Kabul.

What else? On April 30^th I watched Manchester United play Manchester City in an important English Premier League match. Seeing the squad Sir Alex Ferguson sent onto the pitch, it certainly appeared that the proud Scot was playing for a draw instead of a win. No Antonio Valencia to rampage down the right side, no Ashley Young, and no Danny Welbeck to operate in tandem up top with Wayne Rooney. Two days on, I’m still struggling to understand why Sir Alex started Ji-Sung Park, who hadn’t played since January. After creating a few early opportunities, Man U fell into a conservative, reactive posture, completely shorn of attacking verve. Rooney, star Man U striker, was alone up top, bereft of support, a deserted man on a deserted island. It was a very strange, timid performance by Man U. Goal differential favors Man City, and Man U fans are reduced to hoping for divine intervention.

The May Gloom is upon Santa Barbara. There’s a slight wind from the west, but little chance we’ll see the sun today.

Missing

Every weekday morning, or so it seems, Good Morning America features a dramatic story about a missing person: an infant stolen from a car parked outside a medical clinic; a young woman on vacation with friends in Arizona, here one minute, gone the next; a newlywed vanishes without a trace on her honeymoon. The details, such as they are, unfold in interviews with relatives, police officials, siblings and friends. Is foul play at work? Was the missing person living a secret life? Who had motive and means? Does the missing person’s husband or boyfriend have a history of cruelty or infidelity, drug use, gambling?

Why do so many people go missing in America? Compared to say, France or England or Italy, is America unique or does it merely appear that more people go missing here because our national media focus obsessively on these stories? And why is it that elderly people rarely go missing? Robin Roberts never opens GMA with “breaking news” about a grandmother who went out for an afternoon stroll and never returned. Is this because we don’t care about old people? Perhaps. Clearly, ABC News likes its missing persons young, female, attractive and/or wealthy, from a prominent family or an unusual background, because, if one or more of these criteria are present, the story is more likely to gain traction and run for several consecutive days, building momentum and drama and capturing an audience.

The American news media always claims to only give the viewing public the stories it wants to hear, which is why crime, sex, celebrity, and scandal rule, and important, but dense and complicated stories like climate change, food safety, war and peace, and how the economy really works and who it works for, are relegated to insignificant sound bites; people don’t care about these matters, not when Kim Kardashian’s marriage is tanking or Charlie Sheen is claiming to be a warlock or Ted Nugent threatens to shoot President Obama with a crossbow.

I wonder if there’s one producer at GMA whose only job is to troll for missing person stories. I can imagine the editorial meetings: what have we got in the way of crime, scandal, celebrity or missing persons? Any missing babies or toddlers or debutantes? You know what we need, what I dream about? Get this: Lindsay Lohan has a baby and then goes on a three-day drug bender during which time she leaves her child on a barstool in some Hollywood nightclub. Then, as she races around town desperately trying to remember what nightclub she was in last, she crashes her BMW into the back of a police cruiser on Sunset Boulevard. Ratings would go through the roof.

Yes, indeed, I can see it and hear it. Day after day, Robin and George breathlessly attempting to answer the burning question: where’s Lindsay’s baby? GMA would trot out its medical expert, its top legal analyst, a psychologist, a reporter covering the police department and another camped on the sidewalk in front of Lohan’s home, 360 degrees of coverage, morning, noon, and night, salacious and sensational, irresistible to the American viewing audience.

Even though it’s Sunday evening, I’m sure the dogged reporters at GMA are working hard to bring us a fresh missing person story for tomorrow’s broadcast.

Big Baby

Upon hearing that I had scheduled the procedure to repair my torn right rotator cuff, my wife said, “Are you going to be a big baby about this?” She proceeded to tell me that I was a wimp when it came to pain, no match for any woman. “Try pushing a baby out of your vagina and then talk to me about pain.” Childbirth, the ultimate trump card in the occasional war between the sexes. I tried mounting an argument in defense of my gender, but compared to a human coming down and out the birth canal, I didn’t have much to work with. A vasectomy hurts, to be sure, with alarming swelling of the testicles, but it can’t compare to 27 hours of labor.

I suggested we discuss the practical aspects of my post-operative recovery, what I would and would not be able to do with my arm immobilized by a sling. My wife rolled her eyes and reminded me that rotator cuff surgery is commonplace, routine, outpatient for crying-out-loud, an ice pack and an Rx for Vicodin, no big deal. Why did I insist on treating this run-of-the-mill procedure like open-heart surgery? O-u-t-p-a-t-i-e-n-t, she repeated, like going through the drive-in. For the first few days it was expected that I might need help buttoning my pajamas, tying my shoes or washing my hair, but if I anticipated her waiting on me hand and foot, well, I had better think again. “You make it seem like I’m having a planter’s wart removed,” I said. Poor baby. Did I have any idea how much childbirth hurt, what it did to a woman’s body, the force and pressure exerted on the pelvis, the stretching of skin and movement of bone? Even with an epidural, the pain could only be described as other worldly. But how could I know, a mere man? Unless I could imagine expelling a cantaloupe from my anus.

This thought concerning that lower region did occur to me: I’m on the can, post bowel movement, a natural right-hander with an incapacitated right arm…definitely a practical consideration of the first order. Brushing teeth or buttering toast with the left hand is one thing, doing a thorough job down there with one’s off hand another. For some reason a vision of Charles Darwin crossed my mind, evolution and adaptation, the triumph of the opposable thumb. Being forced to use my left hand all the time, I would improve the coordination and dexterity of that hand and stimulate my brain to boot, thus scoring a victory over my temporary disability. Evolution on a wee scale. My wife hooted at this: “Only you would make that observation. You’ve never wiped your ass with your left hand?”

No, never. Is this so odd? Does it make me some sort of freak?

Seeing that I was distressed at the thought of being away from kickboxing and weightlifting and running for at least three months, my wife kissed me on the forehead and assured me that she would be there for me, every step of the way, and, if it came to it, she would even clean my behind. That’s a measure of true and enduring love.

But of course I’m still the biggest baby around.

Eerie Echoes from 1984

I just finished re-reading George Orwell’s 1984. As my son is introduced to literature like All Quiet on the Western Front and 1984 in his sophomore English class, I am re-introduced to these books. We don’t talk about them too much, my son and I (he’s deep in that uncommunicative teenage phase), but I see the books lying around and pick them up, remember where I was when I first read them. Times change, cultural tools change, governments fall or reinvent themselves, world leaders enter and exit the stage, but these enduring books remind us that regardless of era or place or circumstance, people largely remain the same.

As I was reading 1984 I was reminded of how necessary it is for a nation to have an enemy. For four decades or so America feared the Soviet Union and Soviet-style communism, that grey, humorless KGB-Gulag-police state that lay like a heavy blanket across Eastern Europe, and we devoted economic, political and military resources to contain the Soviet threat wherever in the world it reared its head. Our spies shadowed their spies; our nuclear arsenal kept pace with theirs, warhead for warhead and tank for tank; our proxy states matched up against theirs. Tensions rose, tensions fell, but during the Cold War we always knew where to find our nemesis.

And then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and got bogged down for nearly a decade in a hostile land that would not bend to their will, their centrally planned economy failed to expand as promised, Gorbachev began to loosen the reins of State control, the Soviet edifice creaked and cracked, the Iron Curtain went up in flames and the Berlin Wall crumbled.

Our primary global adversary had morphed into a free market opportunity.

But as if to prove that nature abhors a vacuum, a new bogeyman arose to take Communism’s place: radical Islam, represented by bearded men in flowing robes, with sandals on their feet and ammunition belts draped across their chests, AK-47’s held at port arms, and defiance in their eyes. Jihad, they cried. God is great and Death To America. Our new enemy, everywhere and nowhere, moving in the shadows and on the margins, until they brought the Twin Towers down and instigated the worldwide, never-ending War on Terror, which -- to bring this back to 1984 -- is reminiscent of Oceania’s ceaseless war against its enemies.

The other eerie echo of 1984 lies in the grotesquely oversized American surveillance state, much of it contracted out to private companies with minimal accountability. By now, most Americans grasp that our government routinely eavesdrops on domestic phone conversations, e-mail messages, tweets, Facebook posts, and other on-line activity, though little public protest has resulted from this massive assault against personal privacy. Posters of Big Brother may not be everywhere in contemporary America, but Big Brother is definitely watching and listening, ever alert for allusions, hints, associations or phrases that might be a harbinger of another attack. In a war without end, the threat never abates, and the citizenry is exhorted to exchange constitutionally protected freedoms for the illusion of security; thus it becomes permissible for the President of the United States to authorize the killing of American citizens on foreign ground, without bringing formal charges in a court of law; or authorize the military to indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of subversion or alliance with our enemies, right here on home soil. The current occupant of the White House assures us that he will never abuse these extraordinary powers, but once the genie escapes the bottle, there’s no telling what might happen two or four or six years from now.

Fanatics are always dangerous, and it makes little difference whether those fanatics are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Capitalist or Communist, wild-eyed oil drillers or tree huggers; fanatics become blind to any cause but their own, and in the fanatical mind, the means always justifies the ends.

I fear America has passed a dangerous marker in its history as a functioning democracy, but outside of the ACLU and writers like Christopher Hedges, few people recognize the peril we are doing to ourselves. True liberty and total security from external threats are antithetical. Rights once relinquished don’t return. It’s worth quoting Christopher Hedges here:

“Totalitarian systems always begin by rewriting the law. They make legal what was once illegal. Crimes become patriotic acts. The defense of freedom and truth becomes a crime. Foreign and domestic subjugation merges into the same brutal mechanism. Citizens are colonized. And it is always done in the name of national security.”

I want to believe that Hedges is overstating his case, but I don’t think he is. Orwell described a dystopian country engaged in perpetual wars, constant surveillance of its people, and total control of information; citizens only knew what the Party wanted them to know. As I said before, all of this seems eerily familiar in contemporary America; we are at perpetual war with Muslim fanatics, under watch by our own government, and subjected to a corporate-owned media that filters, distorts and misinforms.

Very eerie indeed.

POEM: Later Than We Think

Empires rise and empires fall
Roman, Ottoman, British
The American empire lies on its deathbed
Heartbeat faint, breathing labored
Fingers growing cold

The powerful divide us and conquer us
With the politics of fear
Pit us one against the other
Tell us we are not our brother’s keeper
Ayn Rand’s twisted morality spills
From gilded lips

They divide us with God and unborn
Babies
Gay marriage and evolution
Gun control and contraception
Race and the color line

While we bicker at the margins,
They plunder and hoard
Destroy the commons on which
We all depend

Time to stand and be counted
Time to stand and be heard
Time to stand and be seen

Our flag still flies
But it doesn’t mean what it once
Did
The wine of our exceptionalism
Has gone rancid in the cask

Money bought the government
And the government delivers the spoils
To the doorstep of its masters
One nation under dollars,
Divisible
With property and prosperity
For the privileged few
Begrudged scraps for the many

Too much money in too few hands
Every banana republic’s time-honored recipe

Time to stand and be counted
Time to stand and be heard
Time to stand and be seen

It’s later than we think
It’s later than we think
It’s later than we think

Gluten Free

When I pulled into the driveway my ten-year-old daughter was waiting for me, arms crossed over her chest, a grumpy look on her face.

“Thanks a lot, dad,” she said before storming off.

“What’s the deal with our daughter?” I asked my wife when I walked into the house.

“Chloe can’t come over for any more play dates,” she said. “It’s your fault.”

“My fault? How can it be my fault? I couldn’t pick Chloe out of a police lineup if my life depended on it. Which one is Chloe? Why can’t she come over?”

“Because you called the President of the United States a pussy, that’s why,” my wife said.

“I did?”

“Yes, you did, in one of your blog entries. Chloe’s mother read it and was horrified. She thinks you’re a dangerous crank.”

I sat down at the kitchen table. “Well, that’s preposterous. Crank, yes; dangerous, no. Chloe’s mother read my blog?”

“She Googled your name and the Balcony popped up. Apparently, she runs background checks as a matter of routine because she thinks Santa Barbara is filled with perverts and illegal aliens – particularly on our end of Milpas Street.”

My wife set a bottle of petite syrah and two wine glasses on the kitchen table.

“Miranda’s in a dither. She’s lost her BFF. Last week Chloe was her mortal enemy and now she can’t live without her. Alliances change fast in fifth grade.”

“Have I met Chloe’s mother?” I asked.

My wife said -- her voice laden with sarcasm -- that I would have met Twyla Thorn if I were more involved in our daughter’s social life. Meaning, she explained in the same sarcastic tone, the endless phone calls and e-mails and text messages to coordinate pick-ups and drop-offs and sleepovers.

“I’m not emotionally equipped to deal with other parents,” I said. “You have more empathy and patience than I do, which allows you to connect with people easily.”

“That,” my wife said, “is a crock.”

“There’s an entire protocol to play dates that I will never understand,” I said.

“If you don’t stop talking I’m going to get really angry.”

“Admittedly, my character is hopelessly flawed,” I said. I poured wine in her glass. “Tell me about Chloe’s mother.”

In addition to being PTA president and chief fundraiser for the elementary school, Twyla was the wife of a super successful plastic surgeon (offices in Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara), and mistress of a nine-room, colonial style house on four acres in Mission Canyon. In her spare time, she ran marathons and rode horses and raised orchids. She was a committed, proselytizing vegan, and every Tuesday afternoon could be found at the farmer’s market on State Street, shopping for organic fruits and vegetables.

“Now I know who Chloe is,” I said. “She’s the lactose intolerant one!”

“That’s right. Twyla’s one of those stridently anti-gluten types. She gives very detailed instructions on what Chloe can and cannot eat.”

“Glutenites can be very self-righteous,” I said.

“Feeding Chloe is a nightmare.”

“I guess you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” I said. “I can’t believe Twyla Googled me. Seems a bit paranoid.”

“Maybe. She despises Obama, by the way. Buys into the whole Muslim-Socialist-Foreigner narrative. She voted for McCain in 2008 and – you’ll love this --- she believes Sarah Palin is the only person who can save America from social disintegration.”

“And she thinks I’m a crank? If she’s a Palin fan why is she so exercised about my calling Obama a pussy?”

“You insulted the office.”

“She took umbrage,” I suggested.

“Extreme umbrage,” said my wife. “But, look on the bright side – someone read your blog.”

“Ouch! Let me ask you something about play dates. When you take the girls to the movies are you obligated to buy Miranda’s friend whatever she wants? Suppose she demands a super-size slushy, a corn dog, a bag of M&M’s and a Snicker’s bar all at the same time?”

My wife sighed. I try her patience. “You have the right to be an adult and set reasonable boundaries,” she said.

“This would make a good blog subject,” I said. “Play dates, parents, the unwritten rules of reciprocity. I could do something with this.”

“Please don’t,” my wife said. “Please.”

I should listen to her.

Fire on the Water

My wife turned fifty a few days ago and we drove up the coast to celebrate. We left our children with their grandparents and hit the 101 north, along the Gaviota coast, with the ocean on one side and green hills on the other. We had two bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne, a couple of books, my iPad and Kindle Fire, and no obligations for two days. Chris Whitley was singing on the stereo; the sun shone through the windshield.

Every time I drive through San Simeon and see Hearst Castle high on the hill, I think of the laborers who hauled all the cement and lumber and pipe and nails and plaster and tile up that long, winding and – at the time – dirt road, and the craftsmen who turned all those raw materials into WR Hearst’s castle. Years and money, money and years, hundreds of trips up the hill, Hearst forever changing his mind, always wanting bigger and more grandiose. It’s hard to believe one man was so wealthy that he owned homes all over the country, warehouses full of artifacts, sculptures, paintings and tapestries, and hundreds of thousands of rolling acres in and around San Simeon – a ranch as large as a medieval kingdom. Thinking about the scale of the Hearst holdings staggers me every time.

The best thing about being in Big Sur – besides the raw beauty of the country and a visit to the Henry Miller Memorial Library – was being out of cell phone range, without access to the Internet, away from TV’s and newspapers, canned laughter and advertising. Time slows in Big Sur and one’s mind can get quiet enough to hear a different inner dialogue. We stayed at the Ragged Point Inn and the window of our room looked over a rocky cove. The tide rolled in and made a sucking sound when it went out, sea birds wheeled in the breeze and turkey vultures soared along the cliff line. We sat on the balcony with our books and a bottle of wine, our feet on the railing, completely at peace.

In the world we left behind, wheels turned and engines coughed, phones chirped and trilled, siblings bickered and parents quarreled, lovers made love, and sparrows built nests; Romney and Santorum and Gingrich and Paul played on, each trying to prove that he is the true Uber-Conservative, the Pure One who will bow to the financial markets, dismantle public education, privatize Social Security, bomb Iran, roll back the clock on reproductive rights, and dynamite the wall that separates church and state.

In far away Afghanistan, a deranged US soldier loaded his weapon and left his base without being seen by any of his comrades, and launched a killing spree that left 16 Afghan civilians dead. This is how military occupations generally end; sooner or later the occupier commits an atrocity the locals will not tolerate.

On our last night, we waited until nearly sunset and drove up Highway 1, climbing and then dipping, while the last of the day’s light set fire to the water.

The Long & Dubious War

I found the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, in my son’s room, sandwiched between a biology textbook and a sheaf of math notes. I first read All Quiet when I was 18 or 19, a few years older than my son is now; at the time I was stationed at Yokota Air Base in Japan, and by happenstance I found the novel in the base library and checked it out because I had heard it was a classic.

My son was assigned All Quiet in his English class, and perhaps for that reason he found the novel “boring” and “tedious” though I give him credit for having the sense not to call it “irrelevant”, a term he often uses to describe his sophomore classes. Having no more need of it, he gladly loaned me the copy, and so, putting aside a volume of essays by Christopher Hitchens, I began reading All Quiet for the second time in my life.

The United States has been “at war” continuously for the past eleven years, in several countries, all of them Muslim. Afghanistan came first, of course, and then Iraq, and then, in no particular order -- Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya. The results have been sketchy at best, the objectives ever changing, and the milestones and timelines for exit elusive.

It’s astonishing to realize that the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan twice as long as World War I lasted. Obviously, the death toll in Afghanistan – on both sides – pales in comparison to the nine million or so human beings slaughtered in World War I. As any reader of All Quiet knows, slaughter is the correct word. Heavy artillery, poison gas, machine guns, grenades, tanks, bayonets; rain, snow, mud, disease, malnutrition; attack and counter-attack; and death, death, death, on all sides.

The civilian population during World War I also suffered, and this stands as a central difference between warfare in 1914 – 1918 and today. Food was often scarce in the countries at war in 1914, as were other everyday comforts. Able-bodied men were conscripted and sent to the front. Few civilians escaped some form of sacrifice for the war effort, and few emerged at the end of hostilities without suffering loss in one form or another.

Contrast that with modern, American-style warfare. Over the last eleven years, Americans have not been asked to sacrifice at all, and except for the constant tributes to our “brave men and women in uniform”, our “valiant warriors”, one could hardly guess we are a nation at war at all. Collective suffering is avoided because our wars are fought by an all-volunteer military – a professional standing army – backed by a multitude of contractors for hire. If the draft had been in effect in 2001 and 2003, it’s unlikely we would have invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq so cavalierly because there would have been a tangible cost, and undoubtedly a popular backlash against open-ended conflicts with a tactic rather than an enemy.

The war in Afghanistan drags on and on because the politicians and generals cannot devise a way to extract our troops without admitting failure. They assure us progress is being made, that the Afghans are nearly ready to assume responsibility for their own security, and that the Taliban is on the run. (After eleven years and billions of dollars expended, not to mention lives on both sides, wouldn’t you expect to see concrete results?) Of course our political and military leaders cannot admit the whole thing was a wretched mistake born of hubris and desire for revenge after 9/11, because to speak the hard, unvarnished truth would undermine many of our sacred beliefs and institutions. Imagine a government spokesperson informing a mother or sister or wife that her son, brother or husband died needlessly. “We regret to inform you that your son was killed because our nation’s politicians are cowardly and stupid.” No, the politicians and generals must make us believe the cause is noble even if it isn’t, just as they sell us the fantasy that in only one more year – or eighteen months at most -- the Afghans will be ready to defend themselves, allowing us to depart with honor.

The lads in Paul Baumer’s company had no beef against their French or Russian counterparts, not as individuals anyway. Soldiers were pretty much the same, regardless of the flag they fought for; they were called up, they went, they fought, they experienced terror and relief, saw comrades mutilated and killed, and each of them desperately wanted to survive to return to the life they had once known. The truth was that prime ministers, presidents, monarchs, industrialists and generals instigated wars and dispatched young men to fight and die in them.

As one of Paul’s comrades said, “There must be some people to whom the war is useful.”

World War I was never out of sight or mind; the same can’t be said for America’s long and dubious war against Muslim terrorists.